Policy Observatory

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between Europe and the United States have been published by the European Commission.

The National Law Review announced that on November 26, the Article 29 Working Party released a short joint statement containing a series of declarations on:  (i) “European values”; (ii) “surveillance for security purposes”; and (iii) the “European influence”. The joint statement emphasizes the balance to be struck between protecting data protection rights and allowing national intelligence agencies to perform their duties, and the fundamental importance of European data protection rights more generally. These affirmations are particularly significant in the context of both the Snowden revelations and the ongoing Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations.

After the “Privacy shield” was adopted on 12 July 2016, the European Commission started internal discussions about whether or not to include “data flows” and “data localisation” clauses in Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and in the Trade in Services Agreement. It appears that the European Commission Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (DG Justice) initially accepted the inclusion of clauses on forced, unjustified “data localisation”, but not on transfers of data. However, according to EurActiv, DG Justice has backed down and accepted a weakening of its position on data protection and privacy in order to placate industry, after a campaign based on dubious assertions and backed up by the US government.